Part 31 (2/2)

And there I think in the still summer night, When all the world is sleeping save the moon And the blest nightingale who shuns the noon, The closed flowers open out of sheer delight And the white lilies bow their slender stalks, For thro' them, 'neath the vines Madonna walks.

DOROTHY FRANCES GURNEY

IN A GARDEN OF GRANADA

The city rumour rises all the day Across the potted plants along the wall; The sun and winds upon the slopes hold sway, Tossing the dust and shadows in a squall.

The sun is old and weary--weary here Upon the ageing roofs and miradors, The broken terraces and basins drear Where each old bell its ancient echoes pours.

Ringing--what memories to ring--to those That linger here--the lizard and the cat, That haunt these solitudes in state morose Through the long day their silent habitat.

Untroubled,--save when in the moonlight steals Some voice in song across the lower wall, And sudden magic each old rafter feels, The while the echoes round it rise and fall.

For as the wail of love or sorrow rings Along the night soft steps are on the stair And pathway; in the broken window wings Are stirring, and white arms are lolling there.

And that old rose tree lifts its head anew, And there is perfume o'er the hills afar, From where Alhambra's crescent cleaves the blue To where agleam Genil and Darro are.

O Voice!--what is thy necromantic word That all Granada waits adown the years?

Is it the sound some love-swept night has heard?-- The cry of love amid the cry of tears?--

THOMAS WALSH

AMIEL'S GARDEN

His Garden! His bright candelabra trees En fete. His lilacs steeped in joy! His sky Limpid and blue! The same flecked shadows lie Athwart this path he paced. His reveries Float in the air. His moods, his ecstasies Still linger charmed. Pale b.u.t.terflies flit by-- Were one his soul it had not found on high Banquet more choice than those infinities He daily knew. And now no one to hear The hovering hours, the singing gra.s.s, to feel The wrinkles of the soul smooth out, to see G.o.d's shadow bend down from eternity-- His garden empty! Yet I gently steal Lest I disturb his dreams still smiling near.

GERTRUDE HUNTINGTON MCGIFFERT

EDEN-HUNGER

O that a nest, my mate! were once more ours, Where we, by vain and barren change untutored, Could have grave friends.h.i.+ps with wise trees and flowers, And live the great, green life of field and orchard!

From the cold birthday of the daffodils, E'en to that listening pause that is November, O to confide in woods, confer with hills, And then--then, to that palmland you remember,

Fly swift, where seas that brook not Winter's rule Are one vast violet breaking into lilies; There where we spent our first strange wedded Yule, In the far, golden, fire-hearted Antilles.

WILLIAM WATSON

THE GARDEN AT BEMERTON

FOR A FLYLEAF OF HERBERT'S POEMS

Year after year, from dusk to dusk, How sweet this English garden grows, Steeped in two centuries' sun and musk, Walled from the world in gray repose, Harbor of honey-freighted bees, And wealthy with the rose.

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